Like walking into a grandmother’s kitchen, for the past 50 years Petti’s Pizza & Ristorante has been serving up fresh pies and classic Italian dishes under the watchful eye of Joe Siciliano.
A modest man who downplays his community and charity work saying it’s “something between me and God,” Siciliano was 20 when, after deciding college wasn’t a good fit, turned to his dad, Lou, and said, “Why don’t we open our own place?”
“My dad said, ‘I’ve been waiting 20 years for you to say that,’” Siciliano said during a rare sit-down break in the middle of a lunch crowd last week.
In his life, Siciliano said his dad owned and operated a couple bars, three or four restaurants and Wickliffe’s first self-serve grocery store.
Before Siciliano and his father bought Petti’s Pizza in September 1963, then-owner Ken Petti had Siciliano work at the shop to introduce him to the pizza business, which he knew little about.
“I was supposed to sit outside and count how many pizzas he sold. It was Friday and Saturday night, I’m 20 years old,” Siciliano said.
“I wasn’t sitting out there. I was making the dough for him the morning so I said I know how many pizzas he’s selling. Unbeknownst to me if he didn’t sell them all, he’d throw the dough away.”
The first week running the pizza shop by themselves, Siciliano said he and his father cleared less than $300 when they thought they’d pull around $700.
“My father said to me, ‘Don’t you sit out there counting?’ ” he said. “We only sold, like, 50 pizzas. Anyway, we survived.”
And thrived. The duo kept it strictly pizza until the spring of 1964 before adding other selections. That led to expanding in the shopping plaza until in 1986 the business out grew the strip and Siciliano built his current location from the ground up at 29303 Euclid Ave. in Wickliffe, just across the street from the old location.
Mary Frascarelli, Siciliano’s sister, said Petti’s has been a family place since the beginning.
“All my children worked here. His (Joe’s) children and now his grandchildren work here,” she said.
“We’ve all worked here. What is a beautiful thing, I think, is that kids when they were in school they used to come and eat pizza here. And then they go to college but every time hey come home they can’t wait to get back to Petti’s Pizza.”
Siciliano deflects much of the credit, saying there’s a lot of lessons to be learned from the restaurant business.
“No one in business can survive without good help. Most of them here have worked with me for at least 10 years,” he said. “And you can’t set a monetary value on where you want to be. Make the best product that you can and do it better than anybody else. If you do that you become successful. If you like what you’re doing and you like your people, that radiates to your customers.”
And the customers keep coming back, with some regulars stopping in three or four times a week, he said.
“We’ve been in a lot of businesses, but never have I had a clientele that’s been this great. I’ve got the nicest customers in the world,” Siciliano said. “Everybody knows everybody. It’s a family restaurant. It’s like coming in and eating at my kitchen table. That’s how I want it.”
Wickliffe Mayor Bill Margalis said Petti’s has fans from across Northeast Ohio not only Wickliffe.
“That’s the place to get your pizza,” he said. “And they’re just great community stewards. They support the local sport teams, schools and the city itself. They’re just good people.”

About the Author

Liz started working at The News-Herald in July 2012. She's covered municipalities, schools and now the night beat. She likes Doctor Who, baseball, ice hockey and cheeseburgers. Reach the author at elundblad@news-herald.com
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